


Infamous

by thedevilchicken



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fighting Kink, First Meetings, Fist Fights, Hand Jobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 15:08:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20566376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: One cold night, they met during a brawl in a London pub.





	Infamous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arysteia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/gifts).

> For arysteia - I hope you enjoy! Set in a rather nebulous time period, this is for your AU tag _Flint and Vane met in England_.

They met one cold night in January, in a thoroughly disreputable pub ignominiously positioned at the border between the London boroughs of Limehouse and Whitechapel. 

Christmas had not long since come and gone. As James was presently between ships and stationed to his surly disappointment with the Admiralty, Hennessey had invited him to sit down to dinner with his family. James had felt he had little recourse but to accept, landlocked as he was in the capital, and so arrived as neatly dressed as he had the facility to be without his uniform. 

He knew the family well: the admiral's plain though outstandingly capable wife, who directed his household not at all unlike a top-rate ship-of-the-line, and his two sons who were not quite James' match in age. The younger was up at Cambridge reading the law, with an intention to distinguish himself in a profession removed from that of his general heritage, but the elder had followed his father's line into the navy. James and the elder son had both been made lieutenant some time ago by then and although James had had his promotion almost two full years the earlier, he suspected it wouldn't be long before Hennessey's son took a step above him. James has always understood his place within the world, though that didn't mean he liked it.

All talk of ships and sailing them had been declared prohibited for the occasion, however, and James had found he had little to say on any other subject. He remained polite, complimented both the food and their home quite genuinely, and wished he could be anywhere else at all.

At the end of the evening, James had retraced his steps back to his shabby boarding house. A week later, still feeling the awkward rankling of his class against that of his benefactor (which he supposed wouldn't change even if he stumbled up the lists to admiral himself), he ducked into a pub not far from the Limehouse docks and ordered himself some food and drink. It was bitter cold outside, with a few stray snowflakes whipped up in the air by the wind; it was warmer inside, but the welcome wasn't quite so warm as their hearth. It had been a long time by then since James McGraw had felt he had a place in any room - the manner he'd cultivated for his career marked him too high for the working class but too low for the middle. Asail at sea was the closest he came to belonging. 

A drunkard staggered into James' table and sent his beer sloshing over his shirt. James swore crisply. The drunk laughed. James stood abruptly; the drunk pushed him; James swung hard, and he struck his jaw clean, and he sent him sprawling to the floor. But the drunk man had a cadre of companions, equally drunk or perhaps more so, who surged forward in for revenge. James broke two men's noses and one's wrist before through sheer force of numbers they knocked him to his knees and at that moment, he truly believed they would at the very least render him unconscious and leave him to his fate on the snowy street outside. 

Except then he heard the crash of a bottle breaking. He saw one of the men stumble against the edge of his worn old table then fall in a heap to the floor. The others braced and bristled. A new man held out his hand and James clasped his wrist and let him help to haul him to his feet. He had barely an instant to look at him as their wrists remained momentarily clasped, and then the fight was upon them once again. 

His unexpected partner was quick and strong and brimming with enthusiasm. James saw in snatches between blows that he knew how to ball his fists so his hands wouldn't break against the bones of a man's face, and when to use his hands and when a judicious elbow or a knee. He had the kind of blunt, dirty skill that can only come with frequent practice and in the low light of the raucous pub, he seemed like he fit there perfectly. Between them, they thwarted the attack. James didn't manage to finish his meal and he thought, his chest heaving as he caught his breath, of all the ways in which the admiral would have disapproved. Considering what seemed to be his nature, however, Hennessey may have been lucky James hadn't brawled with his sons at their dining table.

"We should leave," James said, once they were done, and the man gave him a look that said nothing so clearly as, _you don't fucking say_. So, they made their exit before the fallen drunks could regroup, pushing out of the door and onto the snowy street outside. 

A few doors away, they ducked into a narrow alley leading into the dark between a tailor's shop and a bakery, keeping out of view in case the drunkards from the pub were of a mind to follow them. The smell of bread turned James' stomach and he leaned back against the bakery's wall, aching as he looked at this man who'd taken it upon himself to rush to a stranger's aid. He was young and sharp-eyed, lean and strong with a tan to his skin in spite of the season; he was likely a new arrival to the city from overseas, James reasoned. He had an amused quality about him, too, despite his one purpling cheekbone that was brushed by his long hair, and the torn collar of his old shirt, and the bloody sheen of the knuckles on both hands. He'd fared a little better than James had, whose lip was bleeding steadily down through the stubble over his chin, though he supposed he'd at least avoided losing any teeth. 

"I didn't need your help," James said, though he felt petulant even as he said it. 

"Of course you didn't," the stranger replied. "You were only getting your arse handed to you." He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall of the tailor's shop, not very far away from him at all. He raised his brows. "Or maybe you'd have liked that, hands on your arse. What's a toff like you doing in Limehouse if you're not looking for fun you can't get at home?"

"I'm not exactly a _toff_," James replied, tetchily. "And I came here to eat, not to fuck in an alleyway." 

The man looked him up and down, slowly, very deliberately, as he lounged there against the tailor's wall. He looked so perfectly at ease, despite his cuts and bruises or indeed perhaps because of them, despite his breath clearly visible on the cold air and the fact his calf-length calfskin coat was hanging open. He had a necklace circling his neck that James, in a moment of compulsion, wished to tuck his fingers in beneath and pull. He didn't, but he could imagine very clearly the weight and bulk of this man as he'd stumble against him. 

"They don't have beer and stew where you're from?" he asked. James snorted, derisive, but the man smirked sharply. He stepped forward; three short steps and he arrived before him and he leaned, one hand flat to the wall, easing himself closer. James stood there mutely as one hand brushed his hip, and pushed back, and squeezed at the curve of his arse. James bristled. "Maybe that's it. Let me guess: you prefer being the one doing the one doing the touching." 

"I'd prefer neither." 

"Well, now, that's a lie." 

James just clenched his jaw to feel the muscles work, though it jostled his bleeding lip.

"So, don't you toffs ever fuck?" the man asked him next. "Maybe I need to send a formal invitation before you'll let me get your cock out." One of his hands strayed. He pressed his somehow still-hot palm over James' groin, deliberate and very obvious. "_Dear prissy fucking sir, might I request the pleasure of your company down by the Limehouse docks this evening? You'll find me eagerly awaiting your attentions between Mrs. Goodhead's brothel and the mollyhouse_." 

He was mocking him and James knew it, as even had he in some way mistaken his words, his tone made his intention clear. He would have ordinarily felt himself riled up and ready for a fight at his insinuations, but of course he'd just taken leave of one; there was blood drying on his chin and neck and the front of his shirt and each part of him ached in concert with every other. All that he could summon up was a kind of fatigued indignation, which was far from enough to spur him to violence. Until the man stepped away abruptly and slapped him hard across the face. 

Anger flared up hotly, through James' chest and cheeks and down into his hands, but he didn't hit him. He took two handfuls of the front of the man's coat, turned, and hauled him up against the bakery wall instead, teeth bared. It was meant as a threat, or perhaps a step beyond one, but the damned infuriating man just rested his head back and smiled. James felt an urge to wipe the smile from his face so he did what anyone would have in his position: he pulled one glove off with his bloody teeth then pushed his bare hand - without preamble or forewarning - down the front of the man's tight leather trousers. He'd already wrapped his hand around his cock, already pressed his bloody mouth to the crook of his neck, when he realised that no, this was not _anyone's_ action. This was entirely of his own devise. 

His skin tasted like salt and hot iron against his mouth. His cock in his hand felt stiff and strained and damp at the tip, not unlike his own but still very much unlike it. He hissed in a breath as fingers found his hair, strands already loose from his queue from the fighting. He jerked him, roughly, the angle hard on his wrist and his scuffed knuckles catching on his trousers. And the fucking devil pulled him in, one hand at his arse, till he was rubbing his own clothed cock against one leather-clad thigh. He fucking rutted against him. They moved together, lacking coordination but not enthusiasm. He squeezed his eyes shut. The man's damned vice-like grip held him close, not that he intended to flee though the compulsion to do so wasn't far from his mind. 

He groaned as he came, attempting to stifle the sound against the crook of the neck where his mouth was pressed. His awful partner laughed at him through his own orgasm and James felt his face flush angrily despite the chill. And when he pulled away, he wiped his hand on the front of the man's blood-spattered shirt because frankly, in the moment, he wasn't sure what else to do. Perhaps he thought it might teach him a lesson. It just made him snort with amusement. It was dark, but he could see the way his light eyes danced with it. He just couldn't be sure if it was entirely at his expense or not, though he supposed that mattered very little.

"Don't you feel better for that?" the man asked. He patted James' shoulder. "I know I do." 

James grimaced. He wished to say he felt nothing of the sort, but he would have been a bald-faced lie; evidently, they both knew it. 

He felt the rough pad of the man's thumb rub the curve of his split lip. He felt his fingers brush his neck. He kiss that came after was brief and hard and bloody, and seemed to take both men by surprise. Then he patted James' cheek and stepped away. He turned away. With a twist of his mouth almost halfway to a smile that he tossed over his shoulder like a point-blank fucking broadside, he walked away. 

"What's your name?" James called after him, not entire sure why - or indeed if - he cared. 

And the man turned back to him, still walking except now walking backwards. "Don't you know?" he said. He spread his arms out wide, so his fingertips almost scraped either side of the alley. "I'm Charles Vane." Then, he walked away, and the only action James found he could perform was staring dumbly after him, at his footsteps in the snow. 

He knew the name, of course. The rumour was Charles Vane had sailed with Edward Teach aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge before he'd turned privateer for England. The rumour was he'd sunk British ships just as readily as any others on the seas. Perhaps a number of James' acquaintances had met their ends at the point of Vane's sword, or at least by the aim of his ship's long guns. 

In his room not very long after, James came again with his cock in hand, so hard it splashed his chest and chin. He would have liked to have believed that what brought him to it was not Charles Vane, but he knew the truth of it. And if anything, the simple fact that it was who it was made the situation better, and ten times worse. 

In his sordid fantasy, the truth was he was fucking a fucking pirate. 

In reality, he wasn't sure that a pirate hadn't just fucked him.


End file.
